It wasn't so much the existence of slavery as the possible expansion or collapse of slavery, the growing abolitionist and proslavery movements.
If slavery had been a universally accepted institution, this particular war probably wouldn't have happened.
But it's hard to see how this particular war, at this time, with these sides would have happened without slavery and the conflicts surrounding it.
Of course there were conflicts about the Constitution at the same time, but since most conflicts in constitutional interpretation are resolved peacefully, one has to ask what made the conflict in 1860 so different.
“It wasn’t so much the existence of slavery as the possible expansion or collapse of slavery, the growing abolitionist and proslavery movements.”
I think you will find that Southerners of the period knew that slavery couldn’t expand within the US because outside of the South the conditions for plantation agriculture didn’t exist. So, even if slavery were permitted in a new state, they knew that the slave economy and culture wouldn’t take hold. The abolition movement was viewed as extremist even in the North, and I don’t believe it was growing at all prior to the war. I also don’t think that there was a growing proslavery movement. I would agree that those involved in the controversy over slavery became more intransigent in their views after 1830 or so.
“If slavery had been a universally accepted institution, this particular war probably wouldn’t have happened.”
If there hadn’t been a tariff issue; if there hadn’t been ....this particular war probably wouldn’t have happened. Who knows? Counterfactual history is interesting, but undecidable. Change some factor, and maybe you don’t get a war or you get a war different from that particular war.
“But it’s hard to see how this particular war, at this time, with these sides would have happened without slavery and the conflicts surrounding it.”
The Corwin Amendment addressed the slavery issue squarely and would have resolved the issue in the strongest possible way to protect slavery forever. Lincoln and the North (except for abolitionists, who were few) supported it. I glad that the South rejected it.
“Of course there were conflicts about the Constitution at the same time, but since most conflicts in constitutional interpretation are resolved peacefully, one has to ask what made the conflict in 1860 so different.”
Most being resolved peacefully doesn’t assure all will be. We may be standing on the precipice of an “unpeaceful” constitutional conflict ourselves over many issues that have built up, but which may be triggered by Obamacare, etc.